AUSTIN, Texas, July 26 (UPI) -- The U.S. National Library of Medicine said a digital library to help in infectious diseases education will be developed under a $413,087 grant.

The money will be used by the University of Texas at Austin's School of Information, in collaboration with Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard University, to create a digital library called "eMicrobes." It will be designed to assist healthcare professionals in identifying and treating the growing number of infectious diseases and global threats such as AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and bio-terrorism, officials said.

A team of physicians, medical librarians and medical education specialists will develop the extensive and easily searchable library of interactive case studies and images.

"Understanding infectious diseases and microbiology is critical for healthcare providers," said Gary Geisler, UT-Austin assistant professor and co-investigator on the project. "However, gaining this knowledge is difficult given the vast amount of information in the field and the limited training resources available to trainees and practicing physicians."

The National Library of Medicine, located on the campus of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md., is the world's largest medical library.